


The way out of the maze

by Felpata_Lupin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anxiety, Battle of Hogwarts, Community: HPFT, Domestic Violence, F/M, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 23:32:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7243276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felpata_Lupin/pseuds/Felpata_Lupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <img/>
</p>
<p>Ariadne Smith was lost. But her brother was there to save her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The way out of the maze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StellaBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellaBlue/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Shine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704110) by [StellaBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellaBlue/pseuds/StellaBlue). 



> Stunning banner by StellaBlue

He should've been there, they told you later on. He should've fought, he should've helped. Coward, they called him. But they didn't know he had other battles to fight, other people to assist, other places to be. They didn't know you needed him more.

*

_Everything was cold and dark. Woven branches of ivy formed walls on her left and right, so high she could hardly see the ending. The corridor seemed to go on forever, too dark, too narrow, too empty. She had to get out, out, out. She knew she should've known the way, she knew she should've had a trace to follow. But there were no traces, no kind of guidance. She'd been abandoned, and now she was lost. There was nothing there, except her and those silent plants and that claustrophobic sensation, that feeling of being pressed on both sides as she kept running forward without a clue where she was headed, but needing to get out, out, out._

She woke up suddenly, a scream escaping her mouth. But another scream was filling the quiet solitude of her bedroom, louder, painful, creepy. What was going on? Was she still dreaming? But everything felt just too real, her surroundings too familiar, to be another dream, another nightmare.

She looked around for a source to the horrible sound, but no one was there. Her room was just as empty as always, and for once it felt reassuring. She got up from her bed and huddled in her dressing gown. She could still feel the coldness, unnatural in that time of the year. The scream had subsided, and she dared move to her window and shift the curtains of the tiniest bit to get a look outside.

There was complete chaos down in the street. She could make out men's silhouettes gathering in the open, she could hear their cold, commanding voices, she could see flashes of spells illuminating their features, disturbing the soothing dark embrace of the night. Ariadne's hand let go of the tendril and fell like a dead weight as her body started shaking and her breath became labored and uneven. She curled up in a ball on the floor, hugging her knees with her arms and rocketing slightly back and forth.

"Zach!" she called to the empty room.

*

It had been a sunny afternoon, during the summer holidays between Ariadne's sixth and seventh year, when she'd first met Theseus. Her mother had sent her and her younger brother Zacharias to the village's market to buy some bread, milk and fruit.

They were on their way back home, Zacharias walking a few feet ahead of her, talking excitedly about the upcoming new year at Hogwarts and the Quidditch Cup and _if we find a decent new Seeker this time is Hufflepuff's year!_ sort of things. He was so excited that he didn't realize he was walking right into someone.

"Sorry" he apologized sheepishly, but the young man didn't seem bothered at all. He smiled, and he had the most beautiful, shining smile Ariadne had ever seen.

"Oh, no worries. I wasn't really looking were I was going either..." he said, waving a hand dismissively in Zacharias' direction. Then he turned to Ariadne and, as his dark blue eyes met hers, she felt a strange sensation in her stomach, like a thousand butterflies had suddenly started fluttering in there.

"Those seem heavy," he said, nodding towards her bags.

"Yes, a bit..." she said, even if she didn't find them heavy at all.

"May I help you carrying them?"

"Please."

Ariadne and the fascinating stranger chatted and laughed as they walked side by side, while Zacharias, still marching in the lead, from time to time turned around and batted his eyelids at his sister mockingly, to which she answered with inconspicuous scowls. Theseus told her about his life, his graduation from Hogwarts two years prior and his current job at the Ministry, at the Department of Magical Transportation. Ariadne in turn told him about her own aspirations, her passion for magical creatures and her dream of opening a magical vet clinic in Hogsmeade. She felt surprised once they arrived home. The walk had always seemed so long...

"So, Ari," Zacharias asked once they got inside, "shall I start to go look for the robes?"

"Robes?"

"To walk you down the aisle, obviously."

"Zach, shut up!"

*

“An entire roll of parchment!!!” Ariadne's best friend Sarah Fawcett lamented as they left the Transfiguration classroom after lesson. “On the first week!!! What is McGonagall thinking???”

“That we have NEWTs this year?” Ariadne suggested.

Seventh year had just started, but it was already clear that it would be way beyond stressful. If OWLs year was anything to go by, McGonagall's essay would be only the beginning of a huge pile of work ahead of them. Ariadne wasn't really concerned about the amount of study, though. What really scared her was the idea of what would happen next. Leaving school, becoming a full adult, starting a new life outside of the secure walls of Hogwarts... Ariadne wasn't sure she was ready for that. Everything was going to drastically change, and changes had always scared her.

“What do you have now?” she asked her friend, more to distract herself than out of real interest.

“DADA. I wonder how that Umbridge woman is...”

“She didn't give me a good impression. Thank Merlin, I don't have to take that course anymore.”

“Well, I hope she'll be better than Quirrell, at least. Or than Thickey! Do you remember Thickey?”

“How could I forget...” Ariadne answered, rolling her eyes. That was the principal reason Defence Against the Dark Arts had never sparked her interest. They'd changed a teacher every year and nearly all of them had been utterly disappointing.

“Why couldn't Lupin stay, anyway?” Sarah asked in annoyance, before letting out a deep sigh.

“Because he is a werewolf?” Ariadne answered, trying to maintain a neutral tone and suppressing the chuckle that threatened to leave her lips at her friend's dreamy expression. Sarah had never said, but Ariadne knew that she had always had a bit of a crush on their previous Professor.

“Honestly, Ari! Stop stating the obvious! And I can't see the matter there. I mean, better werewolves than Death Eaters in disguise, or men whose greatest talent is smiling seductively, or...”

“Do you think it's true? What Dumbledore said last year? About Moody, and Potter, and You-Know-Who?”

“Of course. If Dumbledore said it, then it must be true. I mean, he's Dumbledore!!! Don't you believe it?”

“I have no idea.”

That question tormented her a lot in the months to come. Even as she filled her mind with thousands of complex notions and concepts gained in late nights of study over the thick volumes of Ravewclaw's library, the question was always there in the background, ready to come unrequested to the surface anytime she spotted Potter around, or she overheard a hushed conversation, or she read some weird news on the Prophet.

She really didn't know what to think. On one hand, the rational hand, she knew Potter's version was the only one that made sense, that the Ministry was only trying to make excuses to avoid a truth they weren't able to handle. But her emotional side wasn't able to handle that truth either. Accepting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's return meant accepting that the world outside was darker and scarier than she already feared it would be, and it only added to her anxiety for the future.

Zacharias came to her with that same question once, and he was very disappointed when the best answer she could offer him was “I don't know”. Zach obviously still lived in that sort of childish illusion that Ariadne, his Ravenclaw all-brainy big sister, knew everything. She wished that was true. And as he marched away enraged, without a goodbye, she found herself wondering what had happened to him, to the cheery and carefree boy so full of enthusiasm for Quidditch and for life in general. She was terribly worried about him... He had changed so much in such a short span of time, suddenly becoming sulky and fretful. She blamed it on all the uncertainties of what was going on, and on the tyranny of that awful woman that was making everyone's lives at the school so hard. Then again, Zach's new attitude was probably simply a side effect of growing up. If that was so, though, she found that she missed the kid playing _Dumbledore and Grindelwald_ with Timothy Anderson in the garden of their house.

All those worries weighed on her, her amount of stress getting always more unbearable. Everything was so overwhelming that she often hid behind the curtains of her four-poster early in the evening and cried herself to sleep. Once she even burst in tears in the middle of Herbology, startling Sarah, who had no idea about how hard her best friend was finding her struggles. Ariadne always had a talent to hide her feelings.

But things suddenly changed one morning at breakfast when she received an unexpected letter with the morning post. It was from Theseus, that beautiful boy who'd helped her carrying her shopping bags on a sunny afternoon the past Summer. It didn't say much, only that he'd been thinking of her and that he would love it if she wanted to start a correspondence with him. It was a change, and changes scared Ariadne. But this was a good change, because she needed someone to share all her doubts and worries with, and Theseus was just the right person. He was older, he knew the world, he was sympathetic and kind. It took her a few days to send him a tentative, shy reply, but soon their letters grew longer, more frequent and more intimate. She fell in love with him without even realizing it. The world seemed suddenly a safer place to live in.

*

The wizarding world was at war. Tension, suspect and fear dominated people and their relationships. Ariadne didn't let it all get to her. She kept her head low and lived her quiet and simple life, without bothering anyone in the hope she wouldn't be bothered in return.

In the middle of those dark times, her life was as bright as anyone could get. She had fulfilled her dream and opened a vet clinic with Andrew Jenkins, a boy from Hufflepuff House who'd graduated with her and with whom she'd always shared her passion for Magical Creatures. She'd built her routine and contently settled in it. She went to work, she took care of her beloved animals, then she went back home and started bustling about in the kitchen, in the wait of her love to get home too.

She and Theseus had moved in together right after her graduation and she couldn't be more happy. Theseus was sweet, funny, sensible. Even Zach liked him, despite putting up a tantrum when he first learned they were dating, that is to say when he accidentally walked into them snogging at the Three Broomsticks during a Hogsmeade trip the previous year.

Theseus was her guardian angel. He'd come to her when she needed him most and pulled her out of her misery. But the thing about angels is, when they fall they often turn into devils.

*

“So, is it all clear? Felix has to take its medication every three hours, and there is to change the water to the Plimpies, and the Kneazle...”

“Ariadne, you already told me! Go home and get some rest, alright? I have it all under control.”

She nodded and stepped out, leaving the clinic to her associate's care. She knew she could trust Andrew to do an impeccable job, still she couldn't help but worry. Once again, her apprehensiveness was taking the best of her. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to be horribly wrong, even if she had no rational explaination for her uneasiness.

She took the three minutes walk to her apartment at a brisk step. Her Halfblood status guaranteed her relative safety, still she couldn't help but looking her back every few seconds. Panic welled in her, making her heartbeat accelerated and her hands sweaty and shaky. She covered the last few meters with a run.

The moment she put the key into the lock a wonderful sensation of relief washed over her, but it was immediatly replaced with dread as she realized that the door was already opened. Trembling a little, she pulled out her wand and stepped inside.

“Theseus?” she asked surprised and a little concerned once she saw him sitting at the dining table. “Why are you home so early?”

He lifted his glare on her. His eyes were bloodshot and his glare angry and a bit maddened.

“Why are you so late?” he countered aggressively.

Her eyes went to the clock on the wall at Theseus back. He was right, she was nearly a hour later than her usual time. “Blimey, I didn't realize...” she started in amazement. "We had an emergency... There was this kneazle..."

“You spend too much time with that Andrew bloke!” he interrupted angrily. “I don't like him! I don't want him hovering around you!”

She hadn't even noticed him standing up, yet he was currently right in front of her, their faces mere inches apart, his eyes blasting with a hate that just didn't suit him. He was so close that she could smell his breath. A horrible stench of alcohol made her wrinkle her nose in disgust.

“We work together!” she shouted angrily in turn. She pushed him away and moved to the dining table and to the half empty bottle of Firewhisky sitting there. She took it and waved it in his direction. “How much did you drink exactly?”

“Why does it matter?”

“It does matter, because you wouldn't be acting so stupidly if you hadn't drunk so much.”

“I'll tell you one thing, Ariadne Smith,” he said, advancing menacingly on her again. She found herself with her back curved around the edge of the table, Theseus' torso pressing on her and making her feel trapped and defenceless. “You belong to me, and me only. You dare cheat on me and you'll wish you were never born.”

He lifted his hand and for a dreaful moment she feared he would hit her. Instead he simply thrust the bottle out of her hand and took a long sip, then he threw the bottle aside. It collided against the sideboard, small fragments of glass scattering in every direction while a large puddle of liquor formed on the ground. Ariadne had barely time to register all this before the front door shut with a loud slam.

Theseus had left. She was alone. She knew she should've felt relieved, she knew his presence would only endanger her, yet his presence was the only thing that could keep her anxiety at bay. That panic that had assailed her on her way home came back to her even stronger. The world was crumbling around her, the pavement was trembling under her feet. She was drowning, suffocating. She was lost.

*

It had been only an episode, or so Ariadne kept telling herself.

Theseus had come back the following morning and he'd offered her begs and apologies and the solemn oath of not touching Firewhiskey again. Ariadne believed him, because she loved him, and knew he loved her. She needed to believe him because she needed his presence in her life, because she couldn't face the world alone. And for the first couple of month he kept his word.

But Theseus' jealousy had never gone away. Nor had all the stress he had accumulated at work, with the entire Ministry abuzz because of the menace of You-Know-Who, and the war looming at the horizon. He soon found himself craving for that Firewhisky bottle securely locked in a cabinet in the kitchen, the only thing that, he knew, would give him any kind of comfort. It wasn't long before the temptation made him break his promise to Ariadne. And the more he indulged in his habit, the more he felt the need of it.

Ariadne tried to ignore it, but couldn't pretend not to notice for long. One evening she confronted him and it resulted in a bad agument. The arguments became always more frequent, and they turned into actual fights. Words turned into slaps and slaps turned into wand sparkles and hexes. Ariadne was always more terrified. She wanted to escape, but didn't know how. And as much as Theseus scared her, the idea of being prived of him scared her more. He'd been her foothold for too long, she needed him like she needed the air to breath.

And so she went on with her life, her job at the clinic, pretending nothing had happened.

Sometimes Andrew would notice a bruise and ask her about it, but she would say she'd fallen or bumped into a piece of furniture and he would accept her answer and brush his worries off.

Sometimes Zach would drop by for a surprise visit during his Hogsmeade trips. He would notice something with her was off, of course. He'd always done, even when they were children, and it cost her a lot of effort to look at her brother in the eyes and lie to him. But she had to, for the safety of them both. Zacharias didn't have to know what was going on. Her little brother didn't need to be bothered by it.

*

“Hey, Ari! Sorry, I found the door opened and I thought...”

The sudden, unexpected voice shut up equally unexpectedly. Ariadne, who'd been covering her face with her arms in an attempt to shield herself from Theseus' new outburst of anger, dared lower them and turn to look towards the entrance, where her brother stood frozen in shock.

“WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!?”

At Zacharias' shout, Theseus turned to him as well, that rage in his eyes that had terrorized Ariadne till a second before now directed to the younger boy.

“None of your business. Go away,” he spat venomously.

“IT IS MY BUSINESS! WHAT ARE DOING TO MY SISTER?”

Ariadne saw Theseus raising his wand. She started shouting panicked, begging him to let her brother be, begging her brother to stay out of it and run away. She didn't need to worry, though. Zacharias was ready to attack way before Theseus had even time to think about it.

“Expelliarmus!” he shouted, and Theseus' wand escaped his grip and landed with a twist in Zacharias outstretched hand.

Theseus looked shocked for a moment, as Zacharias marched towards his sister and put an arm confortingly around her shoulder.

“Get out of this house. Now,” he ordered coldly at the other man.

“Give me my wand back!”

“Get out, I said.”

“GIVE ME MY WAND BACK!”

“I will if you leave right now. And if you swear you'll never get anywhere near my sister again.”

Zacharias handed him his wand back, but kept his ready in case Theseus tried anything. He didn't. He left the house, like Zacharias had told him to do, and then Ariadne burst into tears, sobbing on her brother's shoulder.

“Ari. Ari, it's ok. You're safe now. It's finished.”

She kept crying desperately, Zacharias whispering her soothing words while he patted her gently on the back. Every tear that streamed out of her eyes was a tiny ounce of anguish that was lifted from her worn heart. Eventually she freed herself from her brother's hug and passed the back of her hand to wipe her bleary eyes.

“Thank you, Zach,” she managed, her voice shaky and tired.

“Oh, no need to thank me, Ari. What are siblings for?”

*

She had no idea how much time she spent like that, huddled against the wall with her hands over her ears. She had no idea what was going on out in the street, if those horrible men were still there, if they would enter her house and hurt her, like they'd done to so many others, like Theseus had done to her so many times.

She felt someone posing a hand on her shoulder, and heard the voice she'd been so willing to hear all night. "I'm here, Ari."

Relief flooded through her at the sound of Zacharias' baritone, immediately replaced by a new wave of panic as they heard a loud thud from downstairs and the sound of shattering glass. Ariadne met her brother's glare with fearful, pleading eyes.

"Can you fight them off? You told me about all those defensive spells you were practising in your spare time. Are you able to fight?"

"No, I'm not able to fight," he answered sincerely, with a slight frown.

"Why not?"

"I'm too scared."

He gave her a tiny smile and she weakly returned it.

"Me too," she confessed with a little nod.

Zacharias sat beside his sister, circling her shoulder with his arm protectively. They stayed there, seated on the floor, listening in silence while the hell unleashed outside, praying they would live long enough to hear the end of it all, to see the light of a new dawn shine.

*

They probably would never understand, but it didn't matter. Because you knew who he really was. He was your angel, he was your rock. He was your escape from your nightmares, your way out of the maze. They would never see it, but you knew it. Your brother, Zacharias Smith, was a hero. 

**Author's Note:**

> **Dedicated to Kristin (StellaBlue), whose attentive reading and helpful suggestions and amazing encouragement are the only reasons this story is here for you to see. Thank you for being such a wonderful friend and writing partner!!!**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Shine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704110) by [StellaBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StellaBlue/pseuds/StellaBlue)




End file.
